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Hoshan Formation

Hoshan Fm

Period: 
Cambrian

Age Interval: 
late Nangaoan through early Duyunian (mid-Cambrian) (15)


Province: 
Shanxi

Type Locality and Naming

No type section was assigned when Yamane (1924) named the Hoshan Sandstone. An auxiliary section, the Mianshan section, measured by Wu Tieshan and Wu Hongfei from Shanxi Regional Geological Survey Team in 1992, was proposed as representative section of the formation. The section is located at the feet of the Mianshan Mountain at Xingdi Village in Mianshan Township, Jiexiu County, Jinzhong City, south-central Shanxi Province (111°57’00” E, 36°53’00” N). It lies about 1.9 km southeast of Xingdi Village, or 14 km southeast of the seat of Mianshan Township. In this section, the formation is 58.9 m thick. The Hoshan Formation was named by Yamane (1924). The name is derived from Hoshan Mountain (spelled Huoshan in Hanyu Pinyin; also called Huotaishan Mountain), which is the southern section of the Taiyueshan Mountain and is located in the Huozhou, Linfen City, south-central Shanxi Province. Originally Yamane (1924) called this unit Hoshan Sandstone that had been widely used subsequently until Wu (1997) renamed it Hoshan (Sandstone) Formation.

Synonym: (霍山组)


Lithology and Thickness

The Hoshan Formation is a clastic sequence, consisting mainly of sandstone-like quartzite intercalated with quartzose sandstone. The formation contains interbeds of purplish red, ferriferous sandstone in the middle and upper parts and usually has a layer of conglomerate at the base.


Lithology Pattern: 
Sandstone


Relationships and Distribution

Lower contact

The Hoshan Fm is in unconformable contact with the underlying gneiss of Archean Eonothem

Upper contact

It is in disconformable contact with overlying Cambrian formations bearing differently aged trilobites from place to place, showing its diachronous feature evidently.

Regional extent

The Hoshan Formation is exposed in the Shanxi-Henan-Shaanxi Area of North China Region, distributed mainly in the areas of Taiyueshan Mountains and Lüliang Mountains, southern Shanxi with maximum thickness of 59.9‒67.7 m around the Huozhou area, i.e. on the south and north slopes of the Huoshou Mountain, becoming thinner southward and northward until pinched out in Yicheng County in the south and in Yuanping County in the north respectively.


GeoJSON

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Fossils

So far, no fossil is known from the formation


Age 

Probable late Nangaoan through early Duyunian in age (. So far there has been a controversy on the age of the formation. By the influence of Yamane (1924), some reputed Chinese authors such as Li (1939), Ma and Wei. (1956) and Wang (1956) were regarded the Hoshan Limestone to be representative of Ediacaran (“Sinian”) deposits in Shanxi Province. However, those geologists, who had investigated the conformable contact between Hoshan Limestone and overlying Cambrian Manto Fm Shale in field in person, and most of local field geologists as well, believed the formation belongs to Cambrian System (Chardin, 1934; Zhang, 1959; Shen, 1959; Wu, 1997). The latter viewpoint is followed herewith.

Age Span: 

    Beginning stage: 
Cambrian Stage 4

    Fraction up in beginning stage: 
0.7

    Beginning date (Ma): 
510.65

    Ending stage: 
Cambrian Stage 4

    Fraction up in the ending stage: 
1.0

    Ending date (Ma):  
509.00

Depositional setting


Depositional pattern:  


Additional Information


Compiler:  

Peng Shanchi